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H e r e s y o f t h e M o n t h
SABELLIANISM
By James Akin
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 1
 January 1994 
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Dates
c. 195-400
Principal error
Denial that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separate
Persons of the Godhead; claim instead that they are modes, aspects, energies, phases, or offices of a single divine Person.
Doctrinal notes
Known as Sabellianism, after the third-century Roman
priest Sabellius, who developed it, this heresy has had a number of
other names, based upon different facets of the heresy and various
conclusions that follow from it.
Sabellianism emphasized the fact that God is one, wrongly concluding
that in the Godhead there is a single (mon-) principle or
rule (-arche). Thus the heresy was also called "Monarchianism."
Sabellians explained their position by saying that the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three Persons, but three functions
or modes of a single divine Person, so they also were called "Modalists."
It was further recognized that if the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
were all "modes" of a single divine Person, it followed
that the Father, being the same Person as the Son, suffered and died
on the cross, and so in the West this heresy became known as "Patripassianism."
How one divine Person could appear in three different ways could be
explained by analogies: by appealing to the way an actor can play
different roles in a play by wearing different masks; to the way water
can exist in three different forms, solid, liquid, and gaseous; and
to the way one man may have three separate roles as the son of one
person, the husband of another, and the father of a third. Sabellius
said that in God there are three modes in the same way that the sun
is bright, round, and hot.
It is not clear whether the modes were thought of as things between
which God switched back and forth (as in the mask and water analogies)
or whether they were qualities exhibited simultaneously (as in the
relationship and sun examples). Some Modalists claimed that when the
redemption was finished, God would put away the three masks of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and manifest himself as a single-mode
Person.
Catholic response
Sabellius was excommunicated by Pope Callistus I
(c. 220). Sabellianism was rejected by the early ecumenical councils
of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. These councils
affirmed that God is one, but made the distinction between Person
and nature, teaching that the Son and the Holy Spirit are separate
Persons who share one divine nature with the Father.
In 382 the Council of Rome, with Pope Damasus I presiding, condemned
the heresy, stating, "We anathematize those also who follow the
error of Sabellius in saying that the same one is both Father and
Son" (Tome of Pope Damasus, 2).
Important responses to Sabellianism were written by Tertullian (Against
Praxeas) and Hippolytus (Against Noetus and Philosophumena).
These authors pointed out absurdities implied by Sabellianism, such
as that the Son must be his own Father.
(Side note: Hippolytus was then an anti-pope heading a schismatic
congregation in Rome. Later he was reconciled to the Church and eventually
was martyred.)
Modern parallels
Sabellianism was revived at the time of the Reformation
by Socinius, a Reformer considered a heretic even by other Protestants.
Modalism arose in America during the nineteenth century and is today
taught by several Pentecostal churches, the best known being the United
Pentecostal Church (founded 1914).
Modern Pentecostal Modalists claim that "Jesus" is the proper
name of the single divine Person who appears as the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. This notion is also known as "oneness theology"
or the "Jesus only" position. Its proponents tend to be
active proselytizers. They reject baptism in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and instead baptize in the name
of Jesus alone.
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